A sluggish national economic recovery is prompting Vermont leaders to downgrade growth in state revenue, something Gov. Peter Shumlin calls a “manageable challenge.”

Top economists now expect the growth in tax receipts to rise 3 percent in the coming year – down from the 4.8 percent growth projected only months earlier. That translates to a $31 million downgrade for a general fund budget of $1.4 billion in FY2015.

Shumlin briefed reporters on the matter Thursday morning, ahead of the semi-annual meeting of the Emergency Board which is the committee that sets official revenue targets.

But the governor assembled a cabinet meeting Wednesday night to get ahead of the problem. He said he has asked department leaders across state government to devise a plan to reduce their spending by roughly 4 percent below the budgets approved by the Legislature.

Shumlin said the 4 percent reduction was needed because he wanted to spare any cut in three major areas of state government – teacher retirement funding, K-12 education, and debt service.

“Cheer up, folks,” Shumlin told reporters, who peppered him with questions about what was really happening to the economy to prompt immediate action. “We’re trying to be proactive,” he said.

Shumlin, joined by Administration Secretary Jeb Spaulding, said they have invited the VSEA, the state employees’ union, in for talks but that no state layoffs were anticipated.

Existing vacancies, on the other hand, would now become more difficult to fill, the added scrutiny an effort to save money, Spaulding said.

Shumlin said the uncertainty over the future of IBM – the state’s largest for-profit employer – was not a major factor in the revenue downgrade. IBM is rumored to be interested in selling it’s mammoth manufacturing facility in Essex Junction, which is thought to contribute $1 billion annually to the state economy.

The national picture was the driving factor, the governor said. “Vermont is not an island,” he said, noting that Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen had recently made clear to Congress the national economy was seeing a similar sluggishness.

State economist Tom Kavet, in a separate briefing Thursday for members of the Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Committee at the Statehouse, said growth rates continue but at a “lower trajectory.”